


Watching from the Shadows

by ThymeSprite



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Criminal Masterminds, F/M, Heist, Mind Games, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 10:10:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3352691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThymeSprite/pseuds/ThymeSprite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bored out of his mind, Sherlock cares for no case. Until one very special criminal mastermind challenges him.<br/>And Miss Chase is about to show Sherlock his place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching from the Shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magicdrusilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicdrusilla/gifts).



“Are you going to answer?”, John huffed exasperated and, Sherlock knew it without having to look at him, glanced at his phone that had beeped repeatedly, “Like…sometime today?”

Without opening his eyes, Sherlock retraced the path he had been taking in his Mind Palace, from which John had now rudely plucked him out of and ignored the doctor.

“Sherlock.”, his flat mate insisted, “Your phone has beeped ten times within the last 30 minutes.”

“Eleven.”, he corrected and could visualise John’s glare effortlessly, so he added muttering, “It’s only Lestrade.”

“So?”, John asked, the keyboard of his laptop silent, “Then it’s a case. You’ve been bored for days on end, why wouldn’t you want a case?”

“Boring.”, Sherlock dismissed it, but he felt John’s reproachful glare and he gave in. Not for the doctor’s sake, but for his own curiosity.

Eleven text messages, all from Lestrade. With every new text, Sherlock could see how he had grown impatient and the last one said simply “ANSWER!” in all caps. Just as he scrolled down to see what all this fuss was about, the phone buzzed in his hand.

“Guess he lost his temper.”, John mocked and with an indignant snort, Sherlock accepted the call.

“Sherlock, you alright?”, came Lestrade’s voice, to which he merely rolled his eyes and told the DI, “20 seconds.”

This startled him so much he was not able to voice anything for five of his precious 20 seconds straight, then he mumbled confused, “We…we have a case and there’s no coming through…”

“As usual.”, Sherlock interrupted him and added helpfully, “Ten seconds.”

“Ariana Chase.”, Lestrade said and with this he had Sherlock’s attention. He straightened up in his chair and John’s glance once again revealed to him that he should have better control over this telltale sign of his curiosity, but he did not care anymore, not now.

“Explain.”, Sherlock demanded and heard Lestrade take a deep breath, so he felt the urge to forestall him, “In less than a minute, if you please.”

“One of our snitches tells us there’s another heist planned, but he couldn’t tell us when and where. And we still have nothing to link it all to Ariana Chase, but I’m sure, I know she’s behind it.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes silently and thought that no, Lestrade knew nothing, but all he replied was: “I will look into it.”

“Wait, you don’t even know…”, the Detective Inspector muttered, yet Sherlock hung up and silenced him mid-sentence.

“What have I told you about courtesy?”, John reprimanded him without looking up from his latest blog-entry, but Sherlock only shot back, “Nothing I’d care to remember.”

Saying no more, he reached for his coat and his scarf and was almost out the door when John asked, startled: “Where are you going?”

“Out.”, was all he answered and he heard John’s muttered and snarky reply on the way out the door, “Yeah, sure, whatever. Just be home by eleven and don’t talk to strangers.”

Sound advice, he thought, yet he would not heed it.

Finding a cab in Baker Street had never been a problem for him and so, within seconds, he was off to his quarry’s den. Ariana Chase. A pretty English lady, curator of one section of the Tate Modern… and probably involved in the most successful series of heists on banks and art collections in the past few years in London. Nothing had been proven by now, of course not, as Scotland Yard was not able to arrest any criminal with half a brain, but all their snitches placed her in the centre of it all. However, no evidence was to be found and all accusations against her had been faced with a courteous smile and an absolutely airtight alibi.

Sherlock smiled to himself on the cab-ride over to Tallis Street. Seeing her being interviewed by Lestrade had been quite the experience. The DI had made a fool of himself, as always, but more interestingly, Miss Chase, despite being a perfect student at her boarding school and excelling herself at university, she had not seemed to really comprehend the charges raised against her. A break-in at the villa of a private collector mere days after he had bought a prized painting from a gallery that just happened to be run by a friend of hers? Why, she could not have had any part in it since she was verifiably out to dinner with her cousin that very evening.

Right up until the end of the interview, when Lestrade had been forced to let her go for lack of evidence – or anything at all, for that matter – Sherlock had not known whether she was really utterly clueless or the best actress he had ever seen. And he still did not know.

Yet, he thought with a smile as he exited the cab and threw his collar up against the cold wind, maybe he would find out this very evening.

Remembering her address from the interview, Sherlock walked up to the building and examined the buzzers. No fresh name plates whose owners would not know their neighbours, no old ragged ones representing old inhabitants likely to buzz in a distantly related nephew they had never met… no luck, it seemed.

Ariana Chase’s plate looked just like all the other ones, so maybe the landlord had decided on their design, but in contrast to all the other plates hers only stated her surname. With a sigh and a shrug, Sherlock rang at a random name and waited for the answer. He smirked when the reply came lazily, bored: “Yeah?”

A young man, he reckoned, so he tried his luck and declared: “Pizza’s here!”

When the buzzing sound told him he was in, Sherlock pushed open the door, chuckling to himself. This was too easy and despite all the news being filled with headlines of how dangerous all the world was becoming, people got ever stupider.

Watching his surroundings, he made his way up to the fifth floor, to flat number 19, realising a few things about the house at once. It was clean and nicely tended to, the security system was superb… yet useless if the occupants were too daft to make proper use of it. A few flats belonged to families, obviously, as toys and shoes of various sizes were scattered in front of the doors, one flat belonged to an old lady with at least five cats judging from the hairs on her doormat… there were a lot of things to learn about the inhabitants, yet Sherlock was only interested in one of them.

And door number 19, the door to Ariana Chase’s flat betrayed absolutely nothing. Not a single thing.

Curious, he studied the entrance to her place in more detail, coming to yet the same conclusion which was non-existent. There was nothing, just a plain white door and a plain black doormat. With a shrug he thought that it at least told him she was not a girl for pink and glitter. Shame, judging from her pink make-up during the interview with Lestrade, he had thought her a woman for such follies.

A quick look around told him he was alone and as Sherlock knelt down in front of the door to pick the lock, he also had three different false pretences to bring forth, depending on who ever it would be who stumbled upon him.

The first lock was a piece of cake, open in five seconds flat. The other two, however… he was not in the least surprised that she had in fact three locks on her door as she was likely to have a few art treasures in there, but he had not thought them to be quite so tough. It took him longer than he had wanted, but in the end, the third lock gave way and with a satisfying click the door sprang open.

He entered the flat with a broad smile, liking a little challenge before he succeeded anyway. He waited, listening for a second, but all he could hear were the sounds of an empty flat, the refrigerator humming softly and some pipes creaking. Nevertheless, Sherlock proceeded silently and, just for good measure, locked the door again for he had no idea when Miss Chase would return home. A glance around the living room told him there were plenty of possibilities to escape should she surprise him here, so he explored the flat.

Everything was tidy, clean, the furniture expensive, all cream and white with a bit of brown, and neatly kept, but… something was amiss. A second glance over the room revealed it: No personal items anywhere, apart from a plain white cup on the counter separating the living room from the kitchenette, the tea in it of a deep, rich brown. Irish Breakfast.

Careful not to leave finger prints, just to be sure, Sherlock opened drawers at random and found cutlery, pots, whatever one would expect in a kitchen. The cupboards, however, told a different story. Tidily lined up there stood books about art, about English history, a few cookbooks and some on software engineering. It was no proof yet, but it would explain how she had learned so much about security software, enough to override a few in the heists she had presumably conducted.

When he spotted another book, Sherlock whistled softly. Lock picking.

“Aren’t you a naughty girl.”, he mumbled to himself and leafed through it. Nothing he did not already know, but all the types of locks that had been picked to unlock the private collections Miss Chase was accused of having ransacked were in there, so she knew how to pick them. That was a start.

Putting everything back as it had been before, Sherlock closed the cupboard and focused on the next one. Alas, he only found music discs, and lots of them, all Jazz and Ragtime if he was not mistaken.

He was about to leave the living room when a small bureau of oaken wood caught his attention and he opened the first of two drawers, only finding a few pens – she liked fountain pens and black ink – next to a stack of three identical notepads. But the second drawer, the left one surprisingly enough as she was right-handed, was locked. The lock, however, was not even half a challenge. He had it open in no time and found nothing apart from a map of London, opened to show Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and a black inked X marking a spot… Score.

He winced when he heard the door being unlocked. Frantically looking around to escape, he found the windows locked, and cursed softly as the first lock was opened. Two more to go, but no time to pick the lock of a window, so he had to find a hiding place and quickly. Like, instantly.

Sherlock grimaced as he found his only at least somehow reasonable possibility and groaned. It was pathetic. Yet he quickly slipped into the cabinet with the woven rattan door and hoped his hiding place was not too pathetic.

When the door to the flat was opened and he heard two people enter, making out from the sound of it, he smirked and thought that his hide-out was not only pathetic, but also ironic, kind of. There he was, hiding in her wardrobe, shoved between thick winter jackets and a dressing gown of red silk, while she entered with a lover literally hanging on her lips.

The two of them stumbled past the sofa, not wasting any time with talk, but instead they were pulling at each other’s clothes and messily flinging them aside once they had gotten rid of the individual pieces. Who had ever thought that a dapper lady would so carelessly toss blazer and skirt aside?

Peeking through the small gaps in the rattan door, Sherlock arched an eyebrow. They would not really… They would.

Sherlock rolled his eyes as Ariana Chase moaned a bit too loudly when her suitor grabbed her hindquarters and pulled her flush against him. Stroking her blonde hair aside, he then kissed her neck and Sherlock fumbled for his phone, hoping to pass the time the two of them would take for their love-making with texting John. Or Molly or even Lestrade if he had to.

Closing his hand around his phone, he caught a glimpse of Miss Chase’s guest and frowned, staring. Dark curly hair, a lean figure and a slim face… there was a rugged resemblance between that man and himself.

Not knowing why exactly he did so, Sherlock studied the two of them in more detail. Sure, at a closer look that man looked nothing like him, just as much as any dark haired, tall and slim man did, but nevertheless… he found himself looking at the two of them. By now they were both in their underwear and a quick glance told him that the suitor had hoped to get lucky this evening, his boxers of fine quality and black. Surely he had meant his quarry to see them, otherwise they would not have been black.

Miss Chase, however, showed her exquisite taste, yet the almost cute pink bra and matching lace panties were nothing he had expected her to wear on a date had she planned for it to end this way. Yet, she did not complain, but instead gave a delighted gasp when her suitor grabbed her more firmly and lifted her onto the counter to stand between her legs, their groins now on a matching height.

“That fits too perfectly to waste it…”, her lover murmured with a smirk and kissed her shoulder, but she gave an indignant gasp, blushing as she said, “You don’t mean…Richard!”

“Oh, I do.”, he nodded and as she was about to protest again, he grinned and with a swift manoeuvre almost too quick for Sherlock to see he had unclasped her bra and pulled it off before Miss Chase had realised it all. She gasped again, indignant, surprised yet also excited, but this Richard stopped whatever she had wanted to say before it ever left her lips. Prying her hands away he placed a quick kiss on her décolleté and then gave one of her nipples a firm lick.

She moaned and grabbed a handful of his hair, but Sherlock’s gaze was drawn to her other breast as he could watch its nipple stiffen and erect. Richard spotted it as well and treated it with the same caress as its kin. By the time he stopped this fondling, Miss Chase was panting heavily and, to his utter astonishment, Sherlock’s breath had also quickened.

Why? He did not know, but at the same time he found he did not really care, especially not as Miss Chase’s lover hooked his fingers into the hem of her slip and gave it a gentle tug, all the while smiling. With a low moan, she propped herself up with her hands on the counter and allowed the man in front of her to remove the last piece of clothing hiding her from their eyes. Richard tossed the piece of fabric aside and none of them cared where it had landed.

His hands were at Miss Chase again, opening her legs and as she willingly spread them, Sherlock’s eyes were drawn to the point where they met. He knew the female anatomy better than many a doctor, but only from books as he had never cared for any other experience in the field. This, however… somehow this was different. He knew the English and Latin words for everything he saw, even some other languages and a handful of synonyms appropriate and rude, yet somehow none of it seemed fitting any more, all of it too… clinical, too factual.

When her lover’s hand stroked down Miss Chase’s torso and one finger gently followed the slit between her thighs, she moaned, yet Sherlock found his mouth too dry. Her lover let his boxers fall and even though Sherlock knew what they were up to, he now saw it in a different light. The panting and moaning had to him always seemed dull and exaggerated, but when Richard lifted one of Miss Chase’s legs, all the while looking into her eyes, but never stopping his movement, Sherlock could watch the man enter her, saw where their bodies met and it sent a shiver down his spine. Unwelcomed, not understood, but nevertheless unmistakably there.

He closed his eyes, tried to ignore the sounds and sight of their lovemaking, but it was no use, so he looked at them again. Her suitor had lifted Miss Chase from the counter and walked over to the couch, all the while lifting her small figure and then lowering her down again onto him. As he sat down with her on top, Sherlock nervously licked his lips, not knowing why or what to expect, but he was beyond caring, his heart thumping wildly in his chest for no reason he cared to admit.

“Turn ‘round.”, Richard told her with a crooked smile and when Miss Chase looked at him doubtfully, yet her face and chest all flushed with arousal, he added, “You’ll like it.”

So she followed his lead and lowered herself onto him again, this time facing away from him and thereby directly facing the door behind which Sherlock was hiding, but as their moans from joining again faded, her lover pulled her back against his chest and filled his hands with her breast, fondling them as they resumed their earlier rhythm.

Ariana moaned louder this time and Sherlock was glad for this was the only reason why his own, muffled moan went unnoticed. What was wrong with him?

Whatever it was, it was beyond alarming for even as he simply stood there, his dress pants grew tight, too tight and chafed against his crotch. Angry with himself, Sherlock frowned, yet he could not take his eyes off the couple on the couch, their lovemaking now at an accelerated tempo and almost frantic.

He knew perfectly well that an erection was an absolutely natural occurrence in males in or past puberty, but never, never ever before had he experienced it himself as a reaction to audiovisual stimulation. Never. And he had never thought to experience it this way any time during his life span. So why did he?

This one question filled his head, at least the small portion of his mind that was still able to think rationally. He had not even realised how much it had shrunk, but it had to be ridiculously small, this much he understood as he found himself not in the least concerned by his lacking ability to think rationally.

His breath hitched when he heard Miss Chase moan loudly, the sound between a gasp and a lustful groan and without a thought, Sherlock’s hand developed a will of its own and found the way to throbbing, greedy flesh. The slightest touch through the material of his trousers was enough and with a surprised gasp he experienced a climax. He had read of this, of the emotions, but all he felt was blissful indifference to his surroundings.

His gasp could have drawn attention towards him, but he was beyond caring. For a sweet, blessed moment he had no care in the world, then the seriousness of his imbecility crashed down on him and he stared at the couple on the couch wide-eyed, fearing they had heard him. They had not, for just as Sherlock looked at them again, they both gave a gasp not dissimilar to his own and lay there, panting.

Biting his tongue, hard, Sherlock silently threw curses at himself, berating himself for his stupidity. What was wrong with him, really?

“I hate to say it…”, Richard broke the silence and thereby snapped Sherlock out of his silent rant, “But we gotta go, darling.”

“Yes.”, Miss Chase agreed, “But truly, I have to admit… this was a nice way to blow off steam before a task like that. Come on.”

Sherlock’s ears perked up at these words. So Lestrade’s snitch had been right, there was a heist tonight.

“It’s also a good way to celebrate afterwards.”, Richard smirked and as Miss Chase giggled embarrassed, Sherlock finally really remembered the other man’s presence again. And he realised that he had no idea what that ominous Richard looked like. Dark-haired, slender, sure, but apart from that…?

He glanced up at the man, but he had turned his back to the cabinet Sherlock was hiding in and he cursed silently again as he realised that he would not be able to give the police any description of this man. His brain felt still fuzzy and Sherlock knew there was something he was missing, but he just could not lay a finger to it, he just could not figure it out.

As soon as Miss Chase and her lover were dressed, they left the flat and whilst they were still locking the door, Sherlock sprinted out of the cabinet, racking his brain for that clue he was missing. There was a heist tonight and he could not follow them, that would be noticed, so he had to beat them to the scene. For this, however, he had to know where they were going…

Frantically looking around, it suddenly hit him. The map in her drawer had shown Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square. Without a second glance at it, Sherlock bolted to the door and impatiently unlocked it before darting out. He simply let the door fall shut, not caring in the least that Miss Chase would know that someone had been in her flat. At best, she would wonder what curious a burglar would leave the flat without taking anything, so he dashed out and in the process planned the quickest route to the National Portrait Gallery. It had to be the scene for tonight’s heist, for it was the only location suitable in the region in question.

The cabby he had halted was not in the least happy with him as Sherlock rushed him through the streets of London, but he paid no mind to him.

“Lestrade, it’s the National Portrait Gallery.”, he spoke to the DI as soon as that imbecile had picked up his phone, “Your suspect has planned it and her accomplice…left at the next turn, then right…her accomplice is a man named Richard, I have no surname. Dark-haired, slim. Check it against her acquaintances, her colleagues. Do I really have to tell you how to do your job?”

He did not wait for the angry detective’s reply, but instead hastily paid the cabby and jumped out of the car. In a few minutes, the place would be swarming with police officers, so all he had to do was find the way Miss Chase and her accomplices would take to get into the Gallery and hinder them for a few minutes, no longer.

The front door was out of the question, so he looked for a fire exit. With a smirk, he realised that the perimeter was deserted, so he had beaten Miss Chase in the race for the heist after all. Pride filled him at the fact that he had even bested her with a brain all turned to mush, for the hardest part was done, now the only thing to remain was to catch them and that was the least of it. Searching for an opportune entryway, Sherlock’s gaze scanned the building.

“My, my, you’re a quick one.”, a harsh voice behind him startled him and at first, Sherlock had no idea who this voice belonged to. When he spun around to the woman and looked at her, it still took him a moment to recognise Ariana Chase. Whatever he had thought of her before, that she was bashful, gentle… he had to revoke it, all of it.

There she was, standing in front of him all clad in black, practical clothes fitted to rob a bank by crawling through a tunnel, her blonde hair hidden under a black cap. But most of all her face was different. Not the lines in it, but the expression. Where a soft smile and cluelessness had been during the interview with Lestrade, now there were lips pressed to a thin line in smouldering anger, a cruel, crooked grin and ice-cold blue eyes. And as simple as that, in one moment, he had his answer. She was the best actress he had ever seen.

“Were you also that quick when you came?”, she asked and Sherlock winced, speechless, so she laughed at him, the cruelty of it an almost tangible stab into his heart and his pride as she added, “I hope you enjoyed the show.”

Slowly, much too slowly, realisation dawned upon him and he frowned, but Ariana Chase sniggered cruelly to herself as she explained: “I know you were in my flat and I know you were there in the cabinet. There was nowhere else to go when we entered the flat behind you.”

Comprehension arose, but Sherlock refused to acknowledge what it told him. It could not be…

”You even found the clue I left for you, good dog. And you followed it like the submissive little bitch you are.”, she smirked at him and Sherlock felt anger rising in him, he clenched his fists, but he had no words to say.

“You know, you, too, are only a slave.”, Ariana added derisively, “Like all the rest of us, you’re a slave to many things, although – no, especially because you think you were above it all. Mostly you are submissive to your own whims, but now also to me. I have your balls in my hands and I can do with you whatever I want, little pet.”

“You are wrong…”, Sherlock finally managed, but Ariana merely arched an eyebrow at him nd scoffed, “Yeah? Care to explain then why your pants are all wet?”

As soon as Sherlock had looked down to check whether anything could be seen, he knew that he ought never have done so, but as he heard her chuckle darkly, he also knew that it was too late.

As his eyes darted to her, Sherlock found her only a few steps away from him and she came even closer, stalking through the night like a black cat. Now he had no doubt anymore that she had in fact claws, real ones and verbal ones.

“This night was a test, Mister Holmes.”, she purred and smiled dangerously as she came so close their bodies almost touched, “And, admittedly, it was also a show for you, a fun show. It’s up to you now. We can repeat such a show again sometime, even with changing main actors if you please. Or… we can be enemies. Your choice.”

Sherlock clenched his teeth, but she never flinched, never drew her eyes away, not even as the sirens of police cars could be heard. Faster than he had thought it possible, one of her hands was in his hair and pulled his head back, exposing his throat to her, but he did not fight her. And a moment later, he could no longer, even if he had wanted to, for her tongue licked over the exposed skin of his neck and sent a shiver through him. She stopped only a hair’s breadth short of his lips and whispered: “We’re robbing a private collection in Belgravia, but we are now beyond your reach. I will watch you and see what you are, friend or foe. Consider it. You’re in my grip.”

Saying this, she laid a hand into his crotch and chuckled: “I see you’re enjoying the show even now.”

He was, strangely enough, but when the grip of her slender fingers tightened and grew painful, he hissed.

Suddenly, her hand was gone and without having to look Sherlock knew that Ariana, too, was gone. However, the noise and flashing lights told him that the police were finally here. Cursing softly, he turned around and slipped into the shadows before Lestrade or anyone else would find him.

He walked the way back to Baker Street and was glad to find John had already reclined for the night, which was only for the better.

Grumbling to himself, Sherlock went through all the notes he had about Miss Chase. He would have her believe she had gained a helpless puppy in her grip tonight, but in fact, she had made a mortal enemy. And he was eager to test who would be smarter, eventually.


End file.
